Etymology

Noun

1. A storm, especially one with severe winds.
   • 1847, Herman Melville, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas, ch. 16,

     As every sailor knows, a spicy gale in the tropic latitudes of the Pacific is far different from a tempest in the howling North Atlantic.

2. Any violent tumult or commotion.
   • 1914, Ambrose Bierce, "One Officer, One Man,"

     They awaited the word "forward"—awaited, too, with beating hearts and set teeth the gusts of lead and iron that were to smite them at their first movement in obedience to that word. The word was not given; the tempest did not break out.

Verb

1. To storm.
2. To disturb, as by a tempest.
   • 1811, Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Drowned Lover," in Poems from St. Irvyne,

     Oh! dark lowered the clouds on that horrible eve,

     And the moon dimly gleamed through the tempested air.